


Possibility, Part I

by marycontraria



Category: Baby-Sitters Club - Ann M. Martin, California Diaries - Ann M. Martin
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-04-16
Updated: 2012-04-16
Packaged: 2017-11-03 18:57:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/384751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marycontraria/pseuds/marycontraria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cary's got a crush on Maggie.  Kristy can't figure out why this upsets her as much as it does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Possibility, Part I

**Author's Note:**

  * For [joykilldrama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/joykilldrama/gifts).



> This ended up being LONGER than I anticipated... there will be at least one more part coming!

My first clue that something is up with Cary is when he calls me Kristy.

Kristy is what everybody else in the entire world calls me, because Kristy is my name. But Cary _never_ calls me Kristy, unless he's totally distracted by something else. Something bigger than trying to get a rise out of me.

This doesn't happen often.

So we're in the front seat of my tiny pathetic Neon, and we're halfway to Shadow Lake for a week to celebrate my 17th birthday (the condition on this trip was that we had to find an adult who would agree to chaperone: enter my grandmother and her Thursday night poker group, who are usually up for an adventure). The trunk and the backseat are crammed full of groceries and guitars and Claudia's second suitcase (and Abby), and Cary says "Kristy", and I am instantly on guard.

"Kristy."

"Yes, Cary."

"Dawn's friend Maggie is _really hot_."

There is precisely no reason at all why this statement should make me feel the way it does, which is shocked and momentarily speechless and just a little bit like I don't have a stomach anymore.

From the backseat, Abby cackles and enthusiastically agrees that yes, Dawn's friend Maggie _is_ really hot, and I guess she is - I mean, if you're into that sort of thing. That sort of tall, skinny, blonde, very- _female_ sort of thing. Which Abby _is_ into, no surprises there, and apparently now Cary is, too. Geeky, infuriating Cary, who right up to this very minute has had me convinced that he is basically asexual.

"Kristy?"

"Um. I hate to break it to you, dude, but what Dawn's friend Maggie is, is really screwed up."

"But hot. Screwed up how?"

"Like, overachieving perfectionist recovering-anorexic with a rich and famous father and an alcoholic mother... _seriously_ screwed up."

Truthfully, this week is the first time I've seen Maggie - or any of Dawn's California friends other than Sunny, for that matter - in probably three and a half years, and a lot of what I know about how screwed up she's been is total hearsay. But – _Cary_ (I manage to stop myself just short of thinking of him as _my_ Cary).

"...but she's _hot_ ," Abby offers unhelpfully.

"Do you think I stand a chance with her?" Cary asks, and there's that feeling again. I grip the steering wheel a little tighter and wait for my stomach to return to me.

"I don't know, Cary," I can hear the sigh in my voice, and it confuses me. "Why don't you wait and see how the week goes?"

* * * * * * *

It's raining at Shadow Lake. We've been here for less than 24 hours - our last scheduled carload of people (Alan's) hasn't even arrived yet - and already the weather has turned on us. Once the rain started, it took Abby and Anna about five minutes to break out the Monopoly board, and now they're in the middle of a group spread across the living room floor, squabbling good-naturedly over property ownership. Dawn and her California posse have just arrived and I can hear them in the girls' bunk room, gossiping as they unpack. Mal's on the sofa painting her fingernails denim blue; Stacey's curled up in the armchair in the corner with her headphones on and her eyes closed.

I wander through the kitchen (Tee is opening and closing cupboards purposefully, having appointed herself our chef for the week) and out onto the porch. Jessi and Mary Anne are both rereading that book about that wizard kid _again_ (apparently there's another new one coming out in just a couple of weeks); Rick is fiddling quietly with his camera. Logan and Robert are discussing strategy for the upcoming football season. Nannie and her friends already have a lively poker game going on, and are further down the porch hooting with laughter.

Around the corner of the house, facing into the woods instead of towards the lake, I find Cary. He's reading some boring-looking book from one of the bookshelves inside the house, and at first he doesn't notice me standing here. I notice how the humidity in the air has made his hair even curlier than usual, and the way that it falls around his ears; he _almost_ (but not quite) needs to have it trimmed. I marvel for at least the three hundredth time at how ridiculously pretty his eyelashes are (pretty eyelashes are totally wasted on boys – so unfair), and think about how the million freckles he has right now will disappear over the winter, and reappear again next spring. I try to step outside of myself and assess these thoughts objectively: do I feel more for Cary than friendship?

He looks up from his book and sees me. “Ah, Kristin. You are being uncharacteristically quiet.”

I roll my eyes and deposit myself in the chair beside his. “I hate rainy days at the cabin – they always feel like such a _waste_.”

“I find days such as this quite relaxing, myself. A chance to catch up on my thinking, if you will,” he indicates the book in his hands.

“Um, yeah. What _is_ that, anyway?”

“Soren Kierkegaard. Fascinating stuff. In this essay, he proposes a theory of infinite possibility, using by way of illustration a story of a knight who is in love with a fair princess. Social constructs would dictate that the knight – in a position of service to the royal family – would never even be allowed to get near the princess. But in a world where infinite possibility exists, not only would they be able to interact with each other, they could actually fall in love.”

“O... kay?”

“I find this line of reasoning very encouraging, Kristin. If I were to adopt the expectation of infinite possibility in my own life, then I would be able to believe that I – humble Connecticut boy that I currently am – might actually stand a chance with California's fair Miss Blume. You see?”

I don't see. And I don't want to have this conversation anymore.

“...Kristin?”

I jump up from the chair. “That's great, Cary. I'm... I'm gonna go see if Tee wants any help with dinner. I'll leave you to your thinking.” I rush back into the cabin, letting the door bang shut behind me.


End file.
